Grinding Gear Games director Jonathan Rogers said the studio could ship Path of Exile 2 1.0 without the full dozen of classes fans expect, with the team focusing first on finishing the campaign, getting balance right, and delivering an endgame players enjoy. Rogers told PCGamesN that those three conditions are the development milestones the team needs to meet before leaving early access. “We have to have the campaign finished, we have to have the balance of the game in a good place, and we have to have the endgame in a place that people are enjoying as well,” he said.
That approach puts class parity lower on the priority list. Rogers said the studio wants every released class to have its three ascendancies, but conceded the full set of 12 classes might not be ready for the initial 1.0 launch. He suggested the game could still qualify as complete with ten or eleven classes available. Rogers also highlighted specific player expectations by name. “Swords need to be there, right? We can’t ship without them,” he said, adding that weapon and ascendancy coverage for available classes matters to how players experience choice and build design.
Players who bought into early access should expect the 1.0 transition to feel more like a formal milestone than a radical change. The move to full release will also include a switch to free-to-play, which will broaden the audience even if the playable roster is not yet exhaustive. Grinding Gear Games is still rolling out classes in the lead-up to 1.0. With the druid class arriving on December 12, Rogers noted the game already includes the major stat-distribution archetypes seen in the original Path of Exile.
Share thoughts in the comments and follow us on X, Bluesky, and YouTube for more on Path of Exile 2.
Path of Exile 2
Developed by Grinding Gear Games
Path of Exile 2 is a next generation Action RPG created by Grinding Gear Games. Set years after the original Path of Exile, you will return to the dark world of Wraeclast and seek to end the corruption that is spreading. Path of Exile 2 is a free-to-play online multiplayer game with co-op for up to six players.
- Genre: Role-playing (RPG), Hack and slash/Beat 'em up, Adventure
- Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 5, Mac
- Modes: Single player, Multiplayer, Co-operative, Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO)
- Release: 2024-12-06
- Publisher: Grinding Gear Games, Kakao Games
-
Age Rating:
GRAC 19+ / PEGI 18 / ESRB M
- IGDB Rating: 82.1/100
